Smart Connected Lighting Takes the Stage at the Movie Production Studio

IPS created a new smart connected lighting control system for our client, Lighticians, partnering with them to develop a mobile app that manages motion picture lights wirelessly. The IPS-designed app eliminates the time-consuming and cumbersome process of manually adjusting movie studio lighting. The Lighticians mobile app, called Juicer App, is now being used on movie shooting locations and in studio sound stages.

Smart Wireless Lighting System

The system puts smart wireless lighting control directly into the hands of the Lighting Technicians (Gaffers) and replaces/augments the use of the legacy hard-wired control boards.

The system integrates a custom mobile application and a dedicated wireless network on set to allow control of virtually any lighting fixture regardless of manufacturer/brand/capability. The system allows quick setup, breakdown, and offers radically improved productivity/flexibility for Gaffers on set by not requiring them to hardwire dozens (or hundreds) of fixtures into a fixed control panel.

This productivity boost results in substantial cost savings as one of the most expensive times in TV or movie production is when waiting for the gaffers to finish adjusting the lighting as instructed by the Lighting Director enhancing the creative process.

”We selected IPS as our product design partner because of its full range of product design expertise, and in particular, its expertise in designing wireless products and mobile software apps.

Tim DuffCEO, Lighticians

This system requires industrial grade reliability and long service life which dictated the application of a custom platform. In order to communicate with so many devices required a wireless platform able to handle the bandwidth requirements. Hence, a WiFi-based infrastructure was selected and optimized for ease of configuring the fixtures in the network without requiring an IT background. Security protocols were implemented in order to control system access while still allowing multiple authorized users access to the dedicated lighting network sharing set configuration information and allowing recall of saved projects from prior shoots.

IPS’ software team helped to develop a lighting application for gaffers in TV/Film production to make the set-up process simple.

Lighticians IoT Studio Lighting

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IPS and Lighticians partnered to develop a mobile app that manages motion picture lights wirelessly. The application eliminates the time-consuming and cumbersome process of manually adjusting movie studio lighting.

”IPS has been our product design partner from the start, and the company’s expertise in app development and wireless product design has been crucial to the development of our sports broadcasting products, as well as our previously-released motion picture set-lighting solution. The IPS team has extensive wireless connectivity experience which is essential in overcoming the challenges of designing reliable wireless products for use in environments with large amounts of radio frequency interference, like sports arenas." - Tim Duff CEO, Lighticians

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